The Two Tens At The Redwood Bar, Saturday February 11th 2017

The Two Tens play loud and fast, they charge like the Stooges, explode like a White-Stripes-boy-on-guitar-girl-on-drums combination and produce Ramones-esque melodic hooks in repeat. With such a description, you may wish you had been at the Redwood bar, downtown Los Angeles on Saturday night, where the duo was celebrating the release of their new single ‘Keeping Hope Alive’ with a late night show. Actually, they had dropped the single a day before, on 2/10,… obviously!

I don’t know why they called themselves The Two Tens – may be because they are two and make the noise of ten? – but with a dynamite energy and a show build on distortion, pounding drums and screaming harmonies, they played punk anthems after punk anthems. They certainly have the cheerful and childish sonic joy of the Ramones, and a bit of their look too, as guitarist Adam Bones, with his skinny jeans and black mane, which waved non stop at the sound of their rock fury, could easily play a fifth Ramone. Meanwhile drummer Rikki Styxx was playful and on fire all set-long, climbing on her kit at the first song, and pulverizing her skins with an over the top enthusiasm.

As soon as they started, people had a blast, rising their fists in the air, or their drink while pouring the content on my feet, the Two Tens were in full riot mode for 40 minutes or so, and the full ferocity of their repeated assaults made me really wonder. are they really two on stage? After all the Redwood bar is a very dark place, which regrettably forces photographers to use their flash, but yeah, there were only two of them. They barely stopped between the songs, like a lightning bolt crashing on the venue, announcing their songs with a ‘1,2, 3!’, Ramones-style, they made the narrow place explode with a blasting sound, turning the clock back to 1978.

It was The Two tens’ first show back in America, after a tour in Europe, in Italy and Spain. ‘They love Rock & Roll, but they don’t love it as much as you guys love it right now,’ said Rikki Styxx as a sincere homage to the crowd’s pure enthusiasm. And when you would think they would come up with a slower song to catch their breath, the next one seemed to be faster, rioter and louder, bursting like a volcanic eruption that would not give up firing its last burning scoria.

So, are these bright and intense anthems pure punk nostalgia? May be there’s a bit of this and something else, they are probably too unpolished and unruly for mainstream, I was thinking the night just before the Grammys… but who cares about the corporate Grammys, right? The Two Tens play with a pure abandon, it is raw and pure, they play songs for a drunk Saturday night, they play as if there was no tomorrow, and they just wanted to entertain you.